Back to 30s: Barcelona Pipa Club

If you're in the magnificent Plaça Reial, a hot-spot of Barcelona nightlife, and you ring the bell of "Pipa Club" at number 3, it will seem you that you're travelling across ages and that you've jumped into the 20-30s. You'll get into an old, Victorian flat, transformed into a fancy bar with the vibe of the beginning of the XX century. You'll see jazz musician jamming in the main hall and you will be able to drink vermouth while listening to good music and enjoying the atmosphere. 

Barcelona Pipa Club's location: Plaça Reial

The Barcelona Pipa Club was founded in 1980 as a non-profit association, which now counts over than 400 members. It was born as a pipe-smoking club, even if live music constitutes the main attraction.

The style - as already said - is very Victorian: it seems to get back to the London of the 20-30s, especially the Sherlock Holmes pub, which reminds us the foggy atmosphere of Londoner Baker Street. It is one of the most unique places you'll ever visit - especially if you're a vintage lover. 

Barcelona Pipa Club

The list of activities offered by Barcelona Pipa Club is wide: the gastronomic section, which organises gourmet assays and monthly dinners; the photographic one, which arranges laboratories and expositions; the cigar section for Havana fans; a literaly division which allows you to chat with writers; the pipe smoking courses, coherently with the true spirit of the place; painting and photography exhibitions; snooker, darts and chess groups and, last but not least, jazz concerts.

Every sunday, there is the jam session held by some jazz musicians, on monday and tuesday you can enjoy tango and milonga, while on friday there are always musicians playing different instrument with various styles, from blues to gipsy jazz . 

Barcelona Pipa Club: flier

Unfortunately, Barcelona Pipa Club will move soon to Grácia district, at number 21 in Carrer Sant Eulalia. I say unfortunately because Plaça Reial is - without any doubt - one of the most suggestive Barcelonian locations, and it will be difficult to recreate the same atmosphere. However, Grácia has its own allure, and I hope that Barcelona Pipa Club will not lose its timeless style. 

Carlotta Neuenschwander

Por la carretera ~ Manu Chao and his concierto clandesti in El Hospitalet

José-Manuel Thomas Arthur Chao is a French-born artists of Spanish origin. He began his successfull career in the mid-1980s with his first group, the Hot Pants, but it is with Mano Negra, a "multiracial" band founded in 1987, that Manu Chao reached popularity. 

"Mano Negra started playing in a subway in Paris before the band started to be known and selling records. We started in a subway for a living. This is what made the musicians of Mano Negra. And so the people using the subway in Paris was very eclectic. There was people from a lot of different countries, different cultures. So we have to be able to play all kind of music to please all the people in a subway. So that was a perfect school to learn a lot of different style of music."

In fact, Manu Chao and his band are influenced by many different music genres, such as punk, rock, French chanson, Iberoamerican salsa, ska, reggae and Algerian raï, that create a unique music style appreciated in all the world. His songs and lyrics deal with immigration, love, social problems and often carry a left-wing message. Moreover Manu Chao sings in many different languages, such as Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, English, Galician and Arabic, even mixing them in the same song.

His experience with Mano Negra ended in 1995, and Manu Chao started his solo career in Madrid with a new group, the Radio Bemba Sound System. In this new phase José-Manuel wrote some of his most famous songs, like Clandestino (1998) or Me Gustas Tu (2001). 

He considers himself a citizen of the world, however he actually lives in Barcelona (even if he rarely stays in Spain), a city that perfectly matches with his way of living, full of live and energy. The people love him, and he loves his city, he even opened a bar in Barri Gotic, the Mariatchi, and he owns a disco in El Hospitalet where he often performs.

This weekend, in particular, he held two conciertos clandesti in his disco, the Salamandra. Why clandestine concerts? In Barcelona he often performs in secret concerts to avoid a huge request of tickets (and resulting disappointements), so only if you're a regular client of his bar, or if you are a true fan of him (if you are really lucky too!), you will found out about his shows. 

Yesterday, 5th of May, Manu Chao performed for more than two hours without any true break, more than 20 songs in his set list, and energy, really a lot of energy in every single song. This is, in fact, why Manu Chao is so appreciated by his fans, even at the age of 53 he seems a young, crazy boy on the stage, always singing and inciting the public that follows him singing every word and dancing at every song. Clandestino, El Viento, Desaparecido, all his best known songs, spaced out by Pinocchio and other crazy motifs, entertained a public of less than 1000 people in a quite familiar atmosphere. A lot of good music, but also social engagement characterized this concert, with a speech about the human rights crisis in Mexico, with the disappearence of 43 mexican people in mysterious circumstances: 

¡Vivos los llevaron, vivos los queremos! 

With his music kaleidoscope, you will feel lighter, happier, so if you are fishing in troubled waters, if you have some problems, and if you feel sad, just go to one of his concerts, and you will forget everything for the next three hours.

Pase lo que pase, sea lo que sea, próxima estación: Esperanza.

Noisy nights

You may have chosen Barcelona for your holidays, internship, studies or new job thinking that you'll be able to party hard at night all year long. That's true: one of the first thing I was told by my flatmate was that the city counts more than 5.000 bars and pubs. It has also more than 30 discos.

But the thing that you probably didn't think about was that there's actually laws against the noise, even in a city like Barcelona.

We, interns in 1GlobalTranslators, are all used to partying together, and the 3 last home parties we participated actually ended with the police's arrival. The fact is that, you won't have any trouble til more or less 2 in the morning, but after that, you should really pay attention to the noise.

The fine for too much noise is 75 euros (the police doesn't come first to warn you guys, they charge immediately), and the price gets higher depending on the number of people. Thus, we all were once in a massive home party. The police came and asked everybody to go out, counting each person leaving the flat: we were more than 80. And the really bad surprise was that when there is actually more than 50 people in a "piso", the "multa" price is 200 euros! Don't trust that they won't come to the poorest neighbourhood because one of the 3 parties was in Raval, the most legendary "barri".

Other piece of advice: be really careful when you drink alcohol in the street because if the police sees you, you may be charged 13 euros.

Now that you're aware of the sentenced you risk, have good night in Barcelona city!

La tentación de Existir: a Black and White Retrospective

The “Fundació Foto Colectania” is a private foundation inaugurated in 2002 in the district of Gracía, Barcelona, whose objective is to diffuse photography and collections through exhibitions and activities such as seminaries and conferences. 

The exhibition "La tentación de existir" (The Temptation of Existing) compares two essential works of two Sweden authors of the second half of the Twentieth Century: Les amies de Place Blanche of Christer Strömholm and Café Lehmitz of Anders Petersen. They are two photographers which have the same way to understand the world around them. In the works of  Strömholm and Petersen, the teacher and his pupil, is present a Nordic melancholy  and a strong empathy for the people portrayed. 

Christer Strömholm (1918-2002) is known for his intimate black and white street photography portrait series. For him photography was not aimed to describe the reality. His idea was that the work of the photographer starts from himself because the image is in his head and not in front the camera.
In the late 1950s and early 60s, he lived in Paris and he created his most famous book, Les amies de Place Blanche, portraits of glamorous transsexuals in the red-light district around Pigalle. He described it as a book "about insecurity, about humiliation, about the quest for self-identity and the right to live".

La tentación de existir: Les amies de Place Blanche

The black-and-white photographs, shot at night capture a lost Paris, subterranean yet lively, at a time when General de Gaulle was intent on creating an ultra-conservative France with strict Roman Catholic values. The "night birds", as he called them, worked the streets around Place Blanche hoping to raise money to travel to Casablanca for the expensive operation that would complete their gender transformation.
Strömholm like his subjects, worked into the early hours, sharing with them their early afternoon breakfasts, watching them put on make-up and clothes, going down with them to the streets as they solicited for clients. This was a sort of insider reportage based on trust and friendship. 
More than once he affirmed that “Working with photography is a way of life. When I looked to my photos I see that each one is a self-portrait, a part of my life”

La tentación de existir: Les amies de Place Blanche

The transsexuals of Place Blanche led a hard life and often struggled to survive, but in the photographs, what is visible is a sense a camaraderie between the "girls" and between the photographer and his subject. Besides, Strömholm's surprisingly intimate portraits form a magnificent and vibrant tribute to these girls. His photo-essay raises profound issues about sexuality and gender. The subjects' exaggerated self-image shows their often unrealizable dreams and desires. A book of longing and desire, a true classic of postwar European photography.

La tentación de existir: Les amies de Place Blanche

Anders Petersen, a Swedish photographer born in 1944, had been Christer Stromholm’s pupil for one year, between 1966 and 1967. Then, in 1967, he started a project called Café Lehmitz, which takes its name from the bar in Hamburg (Germany) where Petersen used to photograph the late-night regulars - prostitutes, transvestites, drunks, lovers and drug addicts. 

La tentación de existir: Café Lehmitz

The photographs are not intended to judge, they are really close to the soul and the mood of the people depicted, they offer a glance of reality. About the experience in Café Lehmitz, he says:

"The people at the Café Lehmitz had a presence and a sincerity that I myself lacked. It was okay to be desperate, to be tender, to sit all alone or share the company of others. There was a great warmth and tolerance in this destitute setting."

The book - published in 1978 by Schirmer/Mosel in Germany – became a milestone of European photography; one of its photos was used by the American songwriter Tom Waits for the cover of his 1985’s album, Rain Dogs. 

La tentación de existir: Café Lehmitz

On Erik Kim’s – a street photographer – blog, we can find the list of the 10 things Anders Petersen may teach you about street photography:

1. Shoot with your heart, not your brain: “I am more using my heart and stomach and I go for that, it keeps me going”, he says. “I don’t use the upper-half so much when I am shooting – it is more after when I am shooting when I am looking at my contact sheets, and then I try to analyze and put things together”.
2. Create photographs with more questions than answers
3. Use a simple camera
4. Style isn’t something aesthetic: Petersen’s style is more related to the approach – empathic and human – he as with the people he photographs than with aesthetics.
5. Be a maniac, obsessive, photograph a lot of subjects.
6. Get close to people
7. Photography is a self-portrait of yourself
8. Focus on content, not form
9. Photography is about solutions, not problems: as Petersen declares, “photography offers a lot of opportunities. For me, the camera is like an entrance to the private lives of other people. And if you are curious like me, it is a fantastic tool”.
10. Keep an innocent eye, watching things as if it is the first time you do that. 

The exhibition was inspiring: both the artists are original and they allow subjects usually unpopular or discriminated to find their legitimate space in the history of photography. 

Federica and Carlotta